Crawling Home

Martin’s health took a turn for the worse last evening as he struggled with dizziness, vertigo, blood pressure jumping off the charts, diarrhea, nausea, and delirium. Despite having difficulty standing and being ordered by the doctor not to swim, Martin is obsessed with making it to Belem, and insisted on night swimming.

The winds were light and the almost full moon would come in and out of shrouds of clouds, filtering purplish light out over the rippling waters. We did the majority of the swim without the aid of any artificial light. Although the night was perfect, the swimming went terribly. We watched as Martin’s glowing red neon marker zigzagged back and forth constantly. He couldn’t hold a straight line nor stay with the escort boat, sometimes disregarding our navigational signals to swim off in his own direction. After only 11 km, he finally took our advice and quit for the night. “I’ve had enough. I just want to finish and go home,” he told us. Borut and I had to pull him back onto the boat and assist him into the Cassiquiari and to his room, where he immediately passed out in his wet shorts.